Travel journal

Of Terrorists and Sparkly Jeans

I don’t travel a lot, but if you’re reading this blog, you might beg to differ.  By evidence of the frequency of travel posts, it appears that I fly more than I write.  That isn’t so.  Anyone close to me (or anyone who used to be close to me before my new business venture) knows that I hate flying—more specifically, taking off and landing—so I do it as infrequently as possible.  However, for whatever reason, when I do fly, stuff happens.  Stuff that I can write about.

If we thought I was a security risk this summer when I suffered my first full-body scan at LAX, imagine my surprise when in November, my sparkly jeans got me nearly cuffed and arrested at Meadows Field as I left for a haunt convention in Philadelphia. 

Standing in the security line, I visited with a gal pal I hadn’t seen in years.  She told me a horrific story about how airport security once singled her out and patted her down for no apparent reason.

“They even touched my breasts!” she said.  Then, with sarcasm, she gestured to the front of her shirt, “Yes, these are actually hidden bombs!”

For the record, Lori, at least you (or God) have given them ample reason for suspicion. I glanced down at my own chest and felt fairly confident that no one would believe I was smuggling anything other than a padded bra onto this flight.  Lori’s story was unique—an outlier—a marked deviation from what normal travelers experience.

Our conversation ended when my tub-collecting began.  I don’t travel light.  Besides playing the “scale game” with my checked luggage, adding and removing items to come as close to the 50-lb. limit as I can (without going over) like it’s a game on The Price is Right, I also carry a purse, laptop, iPad, and always wear a belt, watch, shoes, and jacket that need to be removed.  By the time I’m nearly naked and all questionable items are going down the conveyor belt, I have filled at least five tubs.

Great.  BFL now has a full body scan.  With no escape, I entered the scanner and lifted my arms, palms out, and smiled as if they were going to give me a commemorative photo keychain.   As I turned to walk out, the TSA agent asked me to look at the monitor to see my image.  “Gosh, that’s nice,” I thought. “Leave it to a small-town airport to show you your own scan so you can tell there’s no funny business going on.”

“See this right here?”  The agent was pointing to an x-ray of a girl with her arms over her head, who also had a glowing butt.  I recognized that butt and the glow, and my eyebrows shot up with humor.

“OH!  Yes!  Those are my cute jeans!”  For proof, I twirled around, lifted my shirt and stuck out my rear-end in a “see-I-am-showing-you-my-sparkly-jeans” sort of way.  He didn’t care, and neither did the female TSA agent that was hovering over me like a prison guard.  I glanced aside, and she was already putting on surgical gloves.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “You’ll have to come with me.  I need to check that area.”

As I wondered what “area” necessitated surgical gloves, she led me to the wide-open, corded off section where we’ve all seen people humiliated in broad daylight.  I was amused because I knew she wouldn’t find anything in “that area.”   She explained that she’d use just the backs of her hands (to feel my butt), presumably to make me feel better that another woman’s palms were not groping me. 

It should be noted that I am a gamer.  If I can take one for the team so that maybe TSA will catch a REAL terrorist wearing sparkly jeans one day, I’m in.  I stood there and held my shirt, patiently waiting for her to finish.  When it was over, she said she needed to test my hands.  I produced my palms and she rubbed them with soft, white, round cloths, which she then placed into a machine.  I thought the ordeal was over; my mind had already downed a vodka-cran and was sitting with its head between my knees for takeoff.

Then, the alarms started going off.

All the TSA agents turned and looked at me, while I looked at the machine as if to say, “What’s wrong with your machine?”  The female’s eyes went from the flashing alarms to me, back to the alarms, and then to me.  She had a defeated, exhausted look on her face when she asked me, “Did you use lotion on your hands this morning?”

I stared for a moment.  Of course I’d used lotion… along with hair gel, mousse, and hairspray within the last 30 min.  I’d gotten up at 3:30 am with no time to spare, so I’m sure I could have styled another head of hair with just the remnants from my hands.  “Yesssss,” I replied, my first hint of indignation showing.

For the record, she knew I wasn’t a security risk; I could see it in her face.  “I’m sorry.  Because these alarms were tripped, I have to do a full pat down on you.”  And before she’d finished the sentence, two other female TSA agents were beside me to ensure I wasn’t going to try to hide the bombs I had in my cute jeans.

As they escorted me past the conveyor belt, I saw my purse, laptop, iPad, belt, watch, and shoes in all the various tubs, hanging out alone while other travelers gathered their tubs and left.   I entered a room that looked like the TSA break room (really?) and my escorts shut the door.  The first agent explained that I’d be touched in (very) private areas; she would be going up and down my inner thighs from both the front and the back; she’d be going inside the waist band on my previously cute jeans (they were fast losing their cuteness), and yes, she would be groping my breasts…. with the backs of her hands.

I remained calm.  What else could I do?  TSA considered me a terrorist already, so any behavior other than total cooperation and I’d be missing my flight.

After I’d passed the grope-test, they led me back to the now-empty security area, where I watched as they (literally) went through every bag, wallet, zipper, shoelace and gum wrapper in my belongings.  One wise cracker even opened my laptop and made fun of my missing backspace key.

Really?  You just groped my breasts, and now we’re chummy enough to make light of my haggard keyboard together?

One piece at a time, the TSA agents returned my stuff, beginning with my shoes, belt, and watch.  At this rate, I would be missing my flight.

“Can someone please check to see if my plane is still there?” I asked as I was hopping on one foot and threading my belt through those stupid jeans.

Instantly, the older black man bolted down the stairs, only to reappear 15 seconds later with a panicked look on his face.

“You need to hurry!” he said, looking at ME, the target of obvious racial profiling. 

“Me?!” I said incredulously as I shoved one arm in my jacket and grabbed the iPad out of the tub.  “Talk to them!”  I gestured to the TSA agents with a stink eye.  To top it off, I was now sweating.

“Well, they are holding the plane just for you, so hurry!”

At that, the assembly line of TSA agents simultaneously decided they’d looked enough, and in 20 seconds, I had my laptop and everything else and was running down the escalator.  Once aboard the small prop plane, the flight attendant announced my seat number like he had it memorized (“Where’s that damn 6A??”).

“6A, welcome aboard. Please take your seat,” he said calmly, and all eyes were on me in a way that suggested they knew why I was late.

“Look at her in those outrageous jeans.  And all that hairspray!” they must have whispered.  “Princess couldn’t be bothered to make it to the airport on time.”

Onward to San Francisco.  Drink, please!  

  

School buses and helium balloons

We sent our children to school again. For some of us, it was the first time; for others with seniors in high school, it was the last time.

There it was.  Another school year beginning and I had just one question: Would I make it through the day without crying?

To moms everywhere, this is for you.  Whether you work a job outside of the home or have chosen to stay home and work, this is for the moments when you sit at your desk or keyboard or kitchen table and wonder if you've made the right choices.

We sent our children to school again.  For some of us, it is the first time; for others with seniors in high school, it is the last time.  For many more, we are somewhere in the middle, and the August sight of freshly washed school buses represents another year gone by that we cannot recapture.

Before my kids started kindergarten, the only clear marker of passing time was the change of seasons. Occasionally I would notice a school bus.  Otherwise, our schedule consisted of bedtime, morning rituals, bath and naps.  The cycle may have seemed hectic to a young mother of three, but there was a comfort in knowing that all of my chicks were home safe in the nest.

But now, as August rolls around and the brightly-painted yellow buses start their perpetual routes, awareness that I am another year closer to my kids growing up and leaving home creeps over me like a dark cloud shadowing a sunny playground.  Instead of Sesame Street and carrot sticks, I think of college, marriage and kids of their own.

I have P.E.N.S.: Pre-Empty-Nest-Syndrome.

Jaisyn, 1st grade; Jordyn 3rd grade.

I’ve tried to slow the pace of these last several years.  I deliberately enjoy every Barbie mess, each costly video game, and all the cookie crumbs left on the kitchen counter because I am privy to a secret that moms with grown children were kind enough to share—that these messes, bumps and bruises, loud music, and sticky fingerprints will be over before I know it.

“It goes fast,” the veteran moms told me.  “Enjoy it while you can.  It seems like just yesterday when…”

Is there any parent who hasn’t heard that?  Next time someone offers those sage words, take heed. Then look into the face of the woman speaking.  Chances are that you will see a wistful look in eyes that seem wise and a bit wrinkled from years of worry.  She may have a slight downward slant to her mouth as she looks at you.

It isn’t that she is envious of you or that she would take your place.  She’s thankful for each beautiful phase in her child’s life, but, there is a sadness, too, as she recalls the new backpacks, lunch boxes, muddy shoes, and French-braided hair of her past.

She’s remembering the smell of crayons and all of the tiny finger-paint masterpieces stored lovingly on the top shelf of her pantry.

I’m sure that there are a few dads going through the same pangs of regret, but this article isn’t for you.

This is for the moms who awaken in the middle of the night and sneak down the hall, checking to make sure all the children are safe in their beds.

Jarret starting school, circa 1996. Today he is 22.

Mom, this is for the way you touch a face or caress a knee as you drive your student to school, asking yourself where the time went.

This is for all the little prayers you raised on their behalf.

You are making a difference in your child’s life.

This is for the moms who lay awake at night making mental lists of everything they think they should have remembered during the day and feeling guilty for anything they forgot.

Moms seem to be in a perpetual guilt trap.  Did I ask everyone about their day?  Did I make everyone feel important?  Did I give each child enough of my time and attention?  Did I lose my temper?  Should I have talked less... and listened more?

Did I take that phone call when my son was in the middle of telling me what happened at recess?  Was I preoccupied when my daughter asked me to tie her shoes?

This is for the moms who won’t put their children on a bus or drop them off at school before getting one last kiss, because, well, you never know what the day will bring.

This is for the moms who worry what the day will bring.

Motherhood is a bonding experience incomparable to that of any other human relationship.  Not only do mothers bond with our children, but we have a common bond with other moms, too.

When I opened The Bakersfield Californian to find a picture of Denise Deatherage kissing her daughter, Zoey, on the first day of school, I cried.  In that moment, I was in the photo kissing my own daughter, and I could feel the years of raising her slip by faster than a helium balloon snapping loose from the grasp of toddler’s fist.

Childhood does that.  It slips through our fingers and flies into our memories.  Then, like the toddler with the wayward balloon, we mothers stare at the sky and wonder where our children will go in life.

As parents, we hope that we’ve prepared them to thrive in any environment.  But as mothers, we sometimes wish desperately that we could run after that balloon, chase it down, and hold it tighter for just a little while longer.

And no, I didn’t make it through the first day of school without crying.  I didn’t even make it through this article.

They made it. Jaisyn (left) starts her senior year in 2011.

Take me out to the ball game 101

One family's trek to professional baseball

I'm writing this blog series at the urging of an unlikely source--a sports agent. You know, a Jerry Maguire, he was an agent who was vying to represent our son in the 2008 amateur draft. I'll give you his name later, somewhere in the following blog entries when I take on the task of describing the fantastic journey to professional baseball.

Jarret at the Area Code Games in 2006 as a junior

He thought I'd done my due diligence in our search for an agent--a search, by the way, we neither initiated nor anticipated. It came to our door, and I dealt with it the most efficient, possibly obsessive, way I knew how. But to dedicate a blog to the search of an agent would eliminate much of the fun we had along the way (the agent part wasn't something I'd like to relive), so I'm going to include our experiences from tee-ball to little league, from travel teams to high school, the showcase circuit, through our search for the right college and, ultimately, the right adviser. By the time I finish this project, I'll tell you the outcome of all that hard work (although some of you already know or will gather from the photos I post along the way). However, there was a day when we didn't know if our son would be drafted by Major League Baseball or play collegiate ball for one of the finest baseball universities in the nation... or if a dreaded injury would end his career before it could begin.

Don’t stop reading if you can’t tell an umpire from a football referee, or if you’d rather hold a hockey stick than a bat. Our experience transcends strikes and outs, homeruns and stolen bases. There are super athletes in every sport, phenoms, high school (or travel ball) players that tend to excel at a more rapid rate than that of their contemporaries.

Jarret and Craig Landis after throwing a no-hitter

If you didn't land on this blog by mistake, then you may have been Googling something to do with the MLB baseball draft, sports agents, or just a love of baseball. You love it, you have a son or a grandson, nephew, brother, or friend who loves it, and you have a million questions about "the process." The process begins as soon as the child shows an affinity for a sport and sometimes never ends (two words: men's softball). Indeed, as long as there is the love of and the ability to play any sport, a dream exists of being a professional athlete.

I don't have all the answers, but I have a lot. The agent who proposed this project first suggested that I write it as a blog so that other parents, finding themselves in the similar quicksand of amateur baseball, could use my dogged research as a rope to pull them from their black hole of confusion. The more I looked around, though, the more I realized that high school baseball players aren’t the only kids being scouted/pursued/hounded by agents, colleges, and professional clubs. Then, the more I started thinking about our experiences and people I've met, information I've uncovered, places we've been, text messages and emails I've received, and relationships I've developed, I realized that squeezing everything into an online journal may have the feeling of a disjointed Major League version of Cliff's Notes, but at least it's better than what I had when I was going through the process: nothing.

The following blog entries will reveal how we overcame the same politics you think are unique to certain all-star teams or to your local Little League. I may surprise you with my opinion of showcases and travel ball MVP awards. I will give you my impression of pitching and hitting coaches. I'll refer to a common baseball phenomenon most parents will recognize from Little League days, and I'll talk agents, scouts, and high school coaches.

After winning the Valley Championship game

This blog will have a happy ending, I assure you. When I first started thinking about writing on this topic, there were eight months until the MLB draft. Although we didn't know whether our son would be drafted with a multi-million dollar contract, go to college, or leave the sport for good, we learned some things along the way. Baseball America might have your son ranked nationally among other high school players, he may be earning every MVP award on his travel ball squad, or maybe sports agents are already making regular visits to your home, but most of the players drafted in the 50 rounds on Draft Day will be surprised by where they were (or were not) picked. If any of this sounds familiar, you're in luck: Your son is already in a win-win situation. Congratulations. He seems to have a safety net.

However, if you're reading this to learn how to get to the "bigs," don't. It's not why I'm writing it. I'm writing it with the hope that this crash course I've had in Major League 101 will benefit the parents who fumble through the sports process either blinded or overwhelmed by the speed with which things move. One day, your son is on a co-ed infield playing tee-ball in the Parks and Recreation league; the next thing you know, he’s 6’3” throwing a 93 mph fastball, and there are advisers in parking lots claiming they will show you the money.

I hope that you will find many coincidences in the following blogs, and that reading how one family dealt with similar issues will be a comfort and give you confidence as you move through the various stages in your athlete’s life.

Keep reading, and enjoy the ride.

I know we have.

You want me to do what??

The random diaries of a frantic traveler

To kick off my annual summer travel blog, let’s begin with my travel agent’s decision to fly Southwest Airlines—the friendliest little (and recently only mildly dangerous) airline of them all. Southwest Airlines does not fly out of Bakersfield, so instead of a 5-minute drive to BFL, my day began at 4:30 a.m. Driving to LAX is never easy, but given the choice of flying at 7, 9, or 10 a.m., my travel agent decided that I’d get more sleep if I took the 10 o’clock flight, not accounting for the L.A. morning commuters traveling on the I-405 the same time as I. Put it this way: Had my flight taken off at 7:00, I’d have left just 30 minutes earlier and would have gotten to LAX two hours faster.

Dumb travel agent.

And just think. If I'd have flown out of sweet little nondescript Meadows Field, I'd have missed the joy of going through my first full body scan as the flunkies from TSA had me stretch my arms over my head, palms out, as they searched my body for details so minute that I necessitated a "pat-down."  The culprit?  Metal decorations on my jeans. I am SUCH a security risk.

The view from my window seat.

Southwest Airlines is the only airline where you get to choose your own seat. For an extra $10 (which I—I mean my travel agent—paid), passengers can feel some exclusivity in boarding before the people who didn’t want to fork out the 10 bucks. In reality, the only passengers trumped by your $10 are the families traveling with small children, a plan that didn’t make sense to me until I realized that all of the childless passengers would be filling the first 30 rows, leaving the screaming, squawking, ill-behaved (because their mamas don’t spank ‘em) kids in the rear to scream amongst themselves.

Another good reason to fly Southwest has always been the fun, carefree, playful nature of the flight attendants (shout-out to my girl, Debbie Seibt, whose been in the Southwest family for 20 years). Clearly, no one in corporate shared that particular company philosophy with the crew on board, because if we weren’t getting scowls, we were feeling like intruders on their private company jet. No smiles, no pleasantries. Barely peanuts.

When the pilot announced that we would be cruising at only 10,000 feet for the entire 4-hour duration of the flight, I began to wonder again about Southwest’s recent safety issues (by safety issues, I mean when fuselage holes opened during flight). Why were we relegated to 10,000 feet? Were they worried about cabin pressure at 30,000? Perhaps like with SCUBA gear and crushing pressure, these airplane parts were likewise not reliable at dangerous altitudes. This had me worried, but not really as much as when the pilot came back on the speaker to say I’d misunderstood his earlier message – we’d really be cruising at 45,000 feet. WHAT? Do planes even climb that high? When do the oxygen masks deploy? What about the planes with safety issues like—say—bursting apart at the seams? I needed a drink. But I didn’t get one. Yet.

As the plane made its descent into Chicago, I looked out the window for several long minutes and noticed a few things. Illinois is flat. It’s green, and it’s flat, and it’s sectioned off in about 30-40 acre parcels with a house on one corner. Each house has a long driveway. The nearest neighbor is easily 30 acres away. You just don’t see that in California. Once we got over metropolitan Chicago, I noticed that the houses aren’t square. Instead, they are more rectangular in shape. It was like looking down on an extremely successful game of Monopoly, where someone had filled the board with those red hotels.

When we landed, I wasn’t allowed off the plane because I was going through to Baltimore. Therefore, I had to sit (drinkless) for another hour while we waited for the plane to fill with more passengers who were probably expecting the same Southwest Airlines-flight-attendant-soft-shoe-routine. Staying on the plane was OK, because it meant that I got to move closer to the front and have a shot at getting a better seat mate (not that the long-haired, barely clean hippie wasn't great). Success! A really nice lady sat beside me and proceeded to tell me about her great grand-nephew (3-years old) from Rhode Island, who was just mauled by a pit bull two days ago. She asked if I wanted to see a photo (prior to his 600+ stitches and facial disfiguring injuries), but she warned me that his face looked like raw meat. I declined. Waitress!!!

When the flight attendants took their seats and the plane began racing down the runway, I was feeling confident that we'd have no trouble on this flight. I'm getting to be a better traveler. But then, just as my confidence was nearing its peak and the nose of the jet was beginning to lift, the two ladies beside me decided to tell each other stories about other flights they'd taken where the plane had "pitched and rolled" or a "hole had opened up during flight." I think I may have groaned out loud, but I can't be sure because I forced my fingers so far down my ear canal that I may have broken both eardrums.

Luckily, the bitter flight crew left the plane in Chicago and a new crew had joined us. I’m sure there were several new flight attendants, but the only one that comes to mind is Mr. Clean, a bald, tatted, buff guy with a Texas accent, who CLEARLY hails from Austin (this plane’s final destination). When he asked me what I wanted to drink, I said, “Do you have vodka and cranberry?” He said, “Vodka-cran? You bet, sweetheart.”

This flight was getting better.

The announcement was that alcoholic beverages were all $5.00 (paid only with credit cards), so when the WWF fighter returned with my drink, I reached for payment, and he said, “It’s OK, sweetheart. I’ll catch you later.”

God Bless America. He never collected my five bucks. And for the record, I can see how some women would chafe at random men calling them sweetheart. But not this time. This vodka-cran was so strong that I wouldn’t need another drink the rest of the trip.

That’s all for now. Onward to Baltimore Airport and an early wake-up call.  Jarret pitches at 10:30 in Salisbury, and this California girl has to figure out how to get there on time.

"Name that Blog" Contest Winner

I get by with a little help from my friends

A few weeks ago, I started a contest to name my blog. When I first created my blog, naming it didn't seem important because the actual name doesn't show anywhere on the site once you open it. However, when posting blog entries to social networking sites, the blog name displays prominently -- so it suddenly became important to come up with a suitable title.

I loved so many of the entries; all of them were very specific to my work and showed lots of thought and creativity. But as you can see, I chose one that probably nobody thought had a chance and, in fact, the person who submitted the title most likely did it with tongue in cheek.  I'll explain why I chose it in a second. But first, my other favorites were: 

Writing in Pajamas. I chose this entry first but then discovered that the amazing artwork on my blog is of a perfectly coiffed blond wearing super cute work clothes. Bummer, because I really liked this entry.

Literary Latte.  This entry was a close second because of my outstanding and often overwhelming love of coffee and literature.  However, as my business, blogs, and life morph into the scary, haunted, and spooky type stuff for half of every year, I felt this title was too narrow to describe all the topics I'll cover in my blog.

Inked in Java.  Loved this one, nearly chose it, too.

Ready... Set... Write.  Very creative and, again, another of my top choices. Loved this one.

In the end, I chose "More than 10,000 Monkeys Can Handle" for two reasons: 1. It epitomizes what a circus I can be at times, and 2. It's that super elusive, strangely intriguing title that makes people click on it just to see what it's all about. It's not too revealing, and it's quirky enough to make some bloggers click on it to find out what it means.

Congratulations, David Luter!  I'll be awaiting a text to learn which of my Chicken Soup titles you'd like as your winning prize.  :)

Adult beverages in the main cabin

Travel follies with Dana, Part One

To friends and family who read this blog, it may appear that I travel a lot – at least more now than ever. After Major League Baseball’s easternmost team drafted my son two years ago, I've had little choice but to get on airplanes and fly all day just to see his face. Yet when compared to people who travel for work, I really don’t fly that much. But when I do… I notice things.

I notice that whether I am flying out of LAX or Bakersfield, whether I set my wakeup alarm or stay up all night packing my (47 lb.) luggage, I will inevitably spend the hours before takeoff staring at the blue light of my bedroom clock instead of sleeping. It is also inevitable that I will not allow time to eat breakfast and will be forced to purchase an overpriced bag of almonds in Colorado to keep my stomach from eating itself. I will notice that the almonds are from California. The irony will not escape me.

To remove all doubt that I’m not a frequent flyer, I would like to present Exhibit A – my blistered big toe. At this point in my trip, I have been gone from my neon alarm clock for only three hours; two of those hours have been in a plane. Therefore, it took just one semi quick-footed jaunt between gates in Denver International Airport to produce a blister the size of Texas. I cannot be trusted to wear travel savvy shoes.

When boarding the plane that will take me to Louisville, I smiled extra-sweetly at the young flight attendant and asked her politely if—when she had some time, because I knew she was busy—could she please try to find me a band-aid. Her smile faded. She looked confused. “B-A-N-D-A-I-D…” I wanted to reiterate for her slowly in the way of a person trying to make a sarcastic point. But I did not. I waited, smiled, waited. Her eyes darted in thought, then she said she didn’t know if there were any band-aids on board, but she would check. That’s all I could ask.

When I made it to my seat, I noticed two things almost immediately: One, there was more leg room on this plane, and two—the man seated beside me was reading the same book as my seat partner from one year ago. The same book? I looked again. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, sure enough. What are the odds? He was also eating an orange. He with his orange and I with my almonds. Weren’t we the epitome of traveling health ambassadors.

As the plane taxied and the flight attendants prepared for takeoff, I kept my eye on the little red headed one, who I hoped had been successful in finding a band-aid. There she was! And she had a telltale small papery wrapper in her hand! She was walking right toward me… success! As she approached, I smiled my best, brightest smile—and she walked right past me. I craned my neck and lifted my eyebrows as if to say, “Wait! My blister and I are right here!” but it was too late. Her arm was extending over the seats to a good looking, 6-foot tall man, to whom she delivered her best, brightest smile and said, “Here’s your band-aid.” He said thanks and took it.

I noticed that United Airlines has tried admirably to separate passengers into classes, but they are failing miserably. The first class seats are sectioned off by what can only be considered mosquito netting so small and transparent that it looks more like a sneeze guard at a buffet. It does not work. At all. So much for the extra $400 they paid to separate themselves from the masses. The next “class” is the first six rows of coach (I am in row seven), where those folks paid an additional $50 for the luxury of having (and the flight attendant announced this over the intercom) two EXTRA inches of legroom. Then, there are the rest of us.

During the speech, the little red headed gypsy explained that alcoholic beverages would be served only in the main cabin. What did that mean? There was only one cabin. I sat up straighter. I peered over my seat to the back of the plane, shifted my gaze to the front where I saw a door that looked like a bank vault. Oh good. I breathed a sigh of relief. It appeared that I was in the main cabin.

The pilots, the other hand, were clearly not getting drinks.

NAME THAT BLOG contest

If you don't help me, who will?

I've had it with this "being creative" stuff, and now I'm "running" out of time. It's time for my first ever BLOG giveaway!  

To get things "running" in the right direction, let's start easy: NAME MY BLOG.  It began as "Dana Martin Writing and Editing" and you can see how original that is. Now, it's morphed into "Dana Says..." which looks only marginally better on the tab, but is really no better than my first attempt. 

I'm "running" out of steam and am turning to the World Wide Web for help.

So, here is how you win a copy of one of the following...   

Chicken Soup for the Soul:

      

Click on the comment tab below and NAME MY BLOG!  Get creative and have fun, but remember that I really NEED to name my blog, so try to make it something usable. :) After I get at least 25 unique entries, I'll select a winner and send you your autographed prize.  Imagine how great that will look on your resume.

Kidding.  Not a runner?  A dog person?  Don't celebrate Christmas?  No worries.  The stories in these books also cover losing weight, animal love in general, and heartwarming stories of having the Christmas spirit,  which we can all use. You know, typical Chicken Soup stuff.  

That's it.  Easy, huh?  Well, if naming my blog is easy, then YOU WIN, because I have been trying for weeks and haven't come up with anything yet. I've "run" out of ideas.

Take your mark... get set... go!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game 101

One family's trek to professional baseball

I'm writing this blog series at the urging of an unlikely source--a sports agent.  You know, a Jerry Maguire, he was an agent who was vying to represent our son in the 2008 amateur draft.  I'll give you his name later, somewhere in the following blog entries when I take on the task of describing one family's fantastic journey to professional baseball. 

Jarret at the Area Code Games in 2006

He thought I'd done my due diligence in our search for an agent--a search, by the way, we neither initiated nor anticipated.  It came to our door, and I dealt with it the most efficient, possibly obsessive way I knew how.  But to dedicate a blog to the search of an agent would eliminate much of the fun we had along the way (the agent part wasn't something I'd like to relive), so I'm going to include our experiences from tee-ball to little league, from travel teams to high school, the showcase circuit, through our search for the right college and, ultimately, the right adviser.  By the time I finish this project, I'll tell you the outcome of all that hard work (although some of you already know or will gather from the photos I post along the way).  However, there was a day when we didn't know if our son would be drafted by Major League Baseball or play collegiate ball for one of the finest baseball universities in the nation... or if a dreaded injury would end his career before it could begin.

Don’t stop reading if you can’t tell an umpire from a football referee, or if you’d rather hold a hockey stick than a bat.  Our experience transcends strikes and outs, homeruns and stolen bases.  There are super athletes in every sport, phenoms, high school (or travel ball) players that tend to excel at a more rapid rate than that of their contemporaries.

Jarret Martin and Craig Landis, 2008

If you didn't land on this blog by mistake, then you may have been Googling something to do with the MLB baseball draft, sports agents, or just a love of baseball.  You love it, you have a son or a grandson, nephew, brother, or friend who loves it, and you have a million questions about "the process."  The process begins as soon as the child shows an affinity for a sport and sometimes never ends (two words: men's softball).  Indeed, as long as there is the love of and the ability to play any sport, a dream exists of being a professional athlete.

I don't have all the answers, but I have a lot.  The agent who proposed this project first suggested that I write it as a blog so that other parents, finding themselves in the similar quicksand of amateur baseball, could use my dogged research as a rope to pull them from their black hole of confusion.  The more I looked around, though, the more I realized that high school baseball players aren’t the only kids being scouted/pursued/hounded by agents, colleges, and professional clubs. Then, the more I started thinking about our experiences and people I've met, information I've uncovered, places we've been, text messages and emails I've received, and relationships I've developed, I realized that squeezing everything into an online journal may have the feeling of a disjointed Major League version of Cliff's Notes, but at least it's better than what I had when I was going through the process: nothing.  

The following blog entries will reveal how we overcame the same politics you think are unique to certain all-star teams or to your local Little League.  I may surprise you with my opinion of showcases and travel ball MVP awards. I will give you my impression of pitching and hitting coaches.  I'll refer to a common baseball phenomenon most parents will recognize from Little League days, and I'll talk agents, scouts, and high school coaches. 

Junior year of high school

This blog will have a happy ending, I assure you.  When I first started thinking about writing on this topic, there were eight months until the MLB draft.  Although we didn't know whether our son would be drafted with a multi-million dollar contract, go to college, or leave the sport for good, we learned some things along the way.  Baseball America might have your son ranked nationally among other high school players, he may be earning every MVP award on his travel ball squad, or maybe sports agents are already making regular visits to your home, but most of the players drafted in the 50 rounds on Draft Day will be surprised by where they were (or were not) picked. If any of this sounds familiar, you're in luck: Your son is already in a win-win situation.  Congratulations.  He seems to have a safety net.

However, if you're reading this to learn how to get to the "bigs," don't.  It's not why I'm writing it.  I'm writing it with the hope that this crash course I've had in Major League 101 will benefit the parents who fumble through the sports process either blinded or overwhelmed by the speed with which things move.  One day, your son is on a co-ed infield playing tee-ball in the Parks and Recreation league; the next thing you know, he’s 6’3” throwing a 93 mph fastball, and there are advisers in parking lots claiming they will show you the money.   

I hope that you will find many coincidences in the following blogs, and that reading how one family dealt with similar issues will be a comfort and give you confidence as you move through the various stages in your athlete’s life. 

Keep reading, and enjoy the ride. 

I know we have.

New digs for my blog

          It isn't that my old blog was bad, it was fine. But "fine" to a writer about her blog is the equivalent of an airline pilot confessing that his company's safety record is just "fine." I am looking for "spotless" or "unblemished" or "immaculate" when it comes to flying. (Can you tell I'm a little obsessed with airline safety?  Even my analogies incorporate the fear of flying.  I need to get over this.) So when I created my website last year, I had the web designer toss in a blog at the last minute, in a "yeah-I-guess-I-can-do-a-blog" sort of way. So the design wasn't important.  In fact, I found the design template online and installed it myself (cue applause).  It wasn't that big of a deal to me.
          But then I started liking my blog--not that I paid much attention to it--but I had a desire for it to be more than "fine."  It was like a messy, undecorated office; I didn't feel like working/writing there because it wasn't pretty.  Sure, I went because I had to, writing snippets and travel journals, mostly to keep my close friends and family updated on our travels to see our son play baseball.  But it just didn't feel like ME.

Charmaine's artwork of Jordyn

        So, enter the fabulous Judith Shakespeare (you'll have to go to her blog to find out why she calls herself that).  I stumbled onto Judith via someone else's blog that I had seen as a link on someone else's Facebook page (a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend sort of thing) and enjoyed another benefit of social networking (finding new stuff) I've grown to love nearly as much as finding out where my friends are eating lunch (shout-out to Dave).  Judith's designs are original pieces of amazing artwork, similar to my friend Charmaine D'Silva's, whose digital doodles and paintings have graced my home and various business cards.  Judith specializes (in my opinion) in branding people--their business, rather--by creating a consistent character or image to use in every aspect of your company or service (Twitter, Facebook, websites, biz cards, and more).  Judith (that isn't her real name) took my personality and ideas, and, with my business in mind, created this blog design with matching accessories. She even used my own handwriting to create the logo and buttons.

Judith's version of scary Dana

          Like a brand new office (more on that later), I now have the equivalent of matching furniture and decor among my social networking sites--you can see that my Facebook and Twitter pages match and so will my biz cards.  The BEST part to me, though, is that Judith created an alter-Dana logo, too, an entire set of matching buttons, pages and cards to match the alter-ego I assume every October (shout-out to my Talladega Frights peeps).  I can't WAIT until October.
          Now, about that office.  I recently remodeled the front of my house, but beyond slapping on a fresh coat of paint, decorating my office wasn't a priority.  Mistake!  I spend at least eight hours a day in my office, and with boxes on the floor, stacks of paper and books, and plain, mocha-colored walls around my desk, I have been in a creative funk.  So, when Rob left for Florida at 12:30, I had furniture delivered at 1:00.  Now, with my palace and blog decorated, I am fully functional again. Don't tell Rob; he'll find out soon enough. 
          Onward to creativity!  Let the writing commence.

Why join a critique group?

I was asked recently to talk about the critique groups that Writers of Kern facilitates, and I thought it was an interesting enough topic to bring up here.  Many writers have never belonged to a critique group and don’t know how they work.  In fact, some of you might even be hesitant to join for fear of rejection or worse—fear someone will steal your idea.  Thankfully, none of that happens at WOK. 

Critique group discussing a submission.

Let me begin by explaining what makes a good critique group.  When I became the Writers of Kern president in June 2009, we had only one active critique group, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy group that currently meets on Thursday nights.  To date, they have survived the longest run, and I think it’s for three reasons: One, the core group has remained consistent and has had very little turnover; two, they meet in a home; and three, they are dedicated to their novels and are invested in each other.  The other critique groups floundered, though, and when asked for an update at meetings, most of them said they weren’t meeting because no one showed up.  It became frustrating to the members who had volunteered to moderate those groups.

Part of my goal as president was to see a resurgence of the critique group, and the best way I knew to do this